Why you need a TPS that handles data effectively

The reason you need title production software that enables effective data handling may feel like a no-brainer in the title insurance industry.

We are an industry constructed on the very foundation of land title information that came in bits and bytes of data written out by hand in dusty old volumes in the courthouse, evolved into paper-based title plants, moved to a semi-digital environment of scanned documents and has now landed in the true bits and bytes world of BIG data.

Of course, at the very core of a good, modern TPS is its ability to empower title professionals to handle and process data for closing and escrow accounting purposes, employing real-time data sharing with quick access to critical information. That includes seamless integrations to the technology solutions best suited to an individual title business’ needs, regardless of who develops those solutions.

But in the future world of commerce, we are just beginning to imagine, with AI tools coming online, your ability to access, interpret and make decisions based on your data will become increasingly vital to every aspect of your business. Here are some necessary steps to ensure your data is ready for the future.

Creating useful data

How do you “create” useful data? Isn’t data just…well…data? Yes and no. Data does not become useful until you enter, organize and present it in a way that becomes easily accessible.

The first point of order is to ensure the data is accurate and uniform. That begins with your data entry personnel who must be trained to enter information in a uniform style, i.e., normalizing how you enter a phone number – dots, dashes or parentheses – or how you enter company names, so they are uniformly searchable – Co. vs. Company, Corp. vs. Corporation. Anyone who has ever managed a database knows how quickly it can get messy if a multitude of employees are entering data in different ways.

Secondly, a good database manager is ensuring the data that is being gathered and entered is in direct correlation to what the company requires in creating its annual business plan or meeting specific goals and objectives throughout the year. This requires that the database manager have a seat at the table when the management team is creating its goals and objectives to make sure that as they proceed through the year, they will have the kind of information at hand they will require to track progress.

And finally, it has to be available in a format that can be easily accessed, presented and interpreted. Good software will have or make it easy to access reporting functions that you can access to build the kind of reports that will be most useful in your efforts to analyze and interpret what is happening in the moment.

It is vitally important that managers who have been tasked with meeting the goals and objectives of the company have access to this data and are trained on how to pull accurate and up-to-date reports so that as the management team is making decisions, they are doing so with accurate and “useful” data that is giving them the truest picture of the health of the company.

At Settlor, we offer the first and only cloud-based platform to simplify the user experience by combining modern technology with three decades of user input and refinement. Settlor is an all-in-one title, closing and escrow accounting application that offers users real-time data sharing, a secure customer and consumer-facing portal, quick access to critical information, in-app communication, enhanced security and ownership over company data.